Sadakuno Akagi

Sadakuno Akagi (1917-7 December 1941) was an Imperial Japanese Navy midget submarine commander. On 7 December 1941, he was the first Japanese sailor to be killed in hostile action against the United States during World War II when his submarine was sunk by USS Ward.

Biography
Sadakuno Akagi was born in 1917 in Shirahama, Wakayama Prefecture, Japan. Akagi joined the Imperial Japanese Navy and served on a Japanese submarine attached to Isoroku Yamamoto's Combined Fleet by 1941. On 7 December 1941, Akagi and his navigator Shohei Higashi were sent out of their submarine on a midget submarine, and they followed a US Navy destroyer, the USS Ward, into Pearl Harbor. The Ward discovered the submarine and threw two depth charges at the submarine; the second one hit the front of the midget sub and exploded, sinking it. Akagi and Higashi were the first two Japanese casualties of the Pacific War against the USA.